Did You Know...

I was sitting around the house trying to shake off a one-point Michigan State loss to Michigan when my Twitter feed went crazy with questions like “did Palin just endorse Gingrich?”

It turned out that Sarah Palin was on with Sean Hannity tonight, where she had apparently given a rationed, carefully measured nod to Newt. Sarah’s husband Todd had previously endorsed Gingrich. Having missed Hannity tonight, I managed to find video of the segment at the always on-the-ball Right Scoop. Here’s my best effort at a transcript of the relevant portion:

Hannity: We talked last time about Todd your husband going rogue — you haven’t gone rogue yet. You haven’t given an endorsement. Are you getting any closer to giving an endorsement?

Palin: Well, I could tell you what I would do if I was a South Carolinian […] If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going, I’d vote for Newt, and I would want this to continue. More debates. More vetting of candidates. Because we know that the mistake in our country, four years ago, was having a candidate who was not vetted to the degree that he should have been so that we knew what his associations and his pals represented and what went into his thinking — the shaping of who our president today is. That vetting did not take place. I want to see that taking place this time because America is on that precipice — it’s that important. We need this process to continue.

So, did Sarah just endorse Newt? Well, maybe, if we allow more qualifiers than the Boston Marathon. She’s saying that Romney shouldn’t be the default nominee at this point and that the process should go on a little longer so the GOP doesn’t have an un-vetted candidate like the Democrats did in 2008 — as if that’s possible. It’s not as if the media wouldn’t have stayed in the tank for Obama if only Hillary could have held out a little longer in the primary process.

Click the pic to go to Right Scoop and roll tape of the segment. Decide for yourself if this is an endorsement of Gingrich, or the placement of a “proceed with extreme caution” sign on Romney. Also, will it move the needle at all for Newt in SC?